Lockheed Martin’s Marietta plant may have more work on the horizon after the South Korean military indicated Friday the F-35A stealth fighter will become its main combat aircraft.
While not specifically mentioning the F-35 by name, a defense ministry spokesman said Lockheed Martin’s radar-evading fighter is the only aircraft that will meet the country’s military needs.
The F-35 had been competing against Boeing’s F-15 Silent Eagle and Eurofighter’s Typhoon fighter jet. Eurofighter is a European consortium.
The Marietta plant produces the center wing assembly -a massive internal skeletal structure - for three versions of the fighter. The center wing sections are then shipped to Fort Worth, Texas, where the plane’s assembly is completed.
In a statement Friday to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Lockheed Martin would not comment on what a contract would mean for Marietta.
“The F-35A is available to meet the Republic of Korea’s 2018 delivery requirements,” the statement said.
The South Korean military recommended the government move forward with an initial order of 40 planes to be delivered between 2018 and 2021, followed by an additional 20 aircraft that would be delivered between 2023 and 2024. It could be several months, however, before the F-35 is formally selected, a process that includes a feasibility study by the military.
The Marietta F-35 program employs about 330 workers. In addition to building the center wing assembly for the fighter jet, the Marietta plant, which employs a total of 6,300 workers, also builds the C-130J cargo plane, modernizes the Air Force’s C-5 airlifter and builds wings for the P-3 Orion patrol aircraft.
